Thank you for your patience as I work through these competency areas a little slower than I might like. The pace and fullness of my days and weeks does not often allow me enough time to do a weekly post. Perhaps a new year will bring more time in the day!
Before I move onto tips for developing social awareness in your child, I want to first give information about the upcoming film screening of Screenagers. We are screening the film for students in grades 4-12 in the morning, followed by small group discussions and debrief. Parents and community members are highly encouraged to attend in the evening at 6:30pm in the Kemper. The parent screening will be followed by a Q&A with Angela Heath, AWS Educational Technology Director, and Nikita Midamba from the Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team (SMAHRT) at Seattle Children's Hospital. With the prevalence of screens in the lives of children of all ages, I really recommend that all parents try their best to attend this screening. For more information and registration- http://www.aw.org/page/community/speaker-series
The key competency area for this post is social awareness. This includes an understanding of perspectives, and specifically what leads to different perspectives and the value of a variety of perspectives. Also, kids (and adults) often get hung up on thinking that if someone's perspective is different than our own, it must be wrong. Our younger students will often feel like another student is lying, when in fact, their perspective and life experiences have led them to having a different perspective in that situation. A concrete and literal thinker often struggles more with seeing different perspectives. Generally, the ability to think more abstractly grows as children develop (beginning in 3rd/4th grade), and we continue to develop this skill through our academic and social-emotional curriculum. Check out this great article about the importance of seeing multiple perspectives and helping your develop this vital skill https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-parents-we-mean-be/201007/how-do-we-help-children-take-other-perspectives-conversation.
The other piece of this competency area is empathy. Though some people seem born with a greater capacity for understanding and showing empathy, everyone benefits from opportunities to develop this critical life skill. Check out this great video from Dr. Brene Brown on Empathy.
Opportunities abound in the world around us to nurture empathetic thinking, whether at the park, grocery store, in a book or movie. There are great picture books you can read at home to develop empathy here or here.
Understanding multiple perspectives and developing empathy and empathetic responses take work for most children (and adults). It is a wonderful thing to work on together with some of the above ways when your child can objectively see how others might feel so that the next time they are directly involved, you can remind them how the character from the book or movie or child at the park felt. Most importantly, for those children that really need help in seeing multiple perspectives and developing empathy, they will benefit their whole lives through with the hard work you put into it now. Don't wait another minute!
Until next week, take care!
